Birthdays come but once a year

And now mine’s been and gone again

So I’ve saved a moment to find the pad

And write this note dear Auntie Gwen

Great thanks to you for the wonderful gift

Of a dodgy Woolworth’s fountain pen

It’s the very thing a young lad would want

On that magical day when he turns ten

You know, my mother’s not entirely chuffed

The whole street heard the row, I think

From the kitchen a tirade of horror shrieked

‘A squid’s been slaughtered in my nice clean sink!’

This pen I’ll treasure though it has its faults

Oozing style in buckets like it oozes ink

I’d been secretly washing my jumper for school

If she’d seen its state she’d have raised a stink  

‘You can’t go sending that’ she said

When she saw my script on the once white page

My attempt at gratitude, at being polite

Had put the woman in another rage

‘It’s just a few blots, you can still read the words’

With my trembling voice I failed to assuage

So I’m asking you now for a better pen

In a few more years when I come of age

I didn’t have an Auntie Gwen. Aunties Maggie and Annie in South Shields were the kind benefactresses on this occasion, but they wouldn’t have rhymed.

Photograph: My recently purchased fountain pen that I used to write this very poem, though you probably wouldn’t have been able to tell from this if I hadn’t pointed it out.